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No airflow from Defrost vents

rustyoldsploder

New Member
Joined
December 5, 2011
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City, State
Erie PA
Year, Model & Trim Level
2001 Explorer XLT 5.0 AWD
Hi all, hope this is the correct place for this question.

I have a 2001 XLT explorer 5.0 all stock. This does not have automatic climate control, rather the manual controls for everything.

I am not getting defrost functionality, it is my understanding that this should actually be the default setting if something goes wrong. The AC itself works (gets cold and hear compressor), as does the temperature control (cold blue to warm red control)

The problem lies with defrost. To the left of off, when dash vent is selected, it appears that the majority of air comes out the dash vents, and a little from floor and a little from defrost. This also appears true with AC and MAX AC.

To the right of off, the selector says dash and floor, and this also appears to be proper operation, with the exception that there's still a little air coming out the defrost vents. Next is floor vent only, and this one is the only selection that works completely as expected.

When floor and defrost is selected, there is a wee bit of air at defrost, with the majority of air coming out the dash vents, and some also at floor vent. When full defrost is selected, the behavior is similar, very little at defrost, majority out of dash vent and floor vent appears mostly closed.

With all this being said, and I tried to be as detailed as possible, do you think I'm battling a vacuum issue, if so, i don't know where to start (the vacuum actuator behind glove box actuates to closed when anything except "off" and "max AC" is selected, and I can feel the vacuum there when i remove the hose.

Is there a way that I can force "default defrost" to help in troubleshooting, and then of course can anyone suggest a good troubleshooting path.

i'm also wondering if it is possible to have a restriction there in the defrost side, for example a mouse nest or something, that would force most of the air through the dash vent even though selected is defrost (this is kinda why i'm fishing for a default defrost?)

any help is appreciated.

Greg
 






I dont know about the explorer specifically, I have only had mine a month or so, but i had a similar problem on an older Chevy. There was two actuators one which would seal of exterior air, the recirculate vs vent setting, and one which was more like a valve and would deflect the air to certain passages to floor, dash, or defrost or combination. The defrost venting was at the end of the actuator travel and that part was going bad. You might check if you have another actuator that might be the problem in the dash somewhere.

Does anyone know if there is another actuator?
 






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